Friday, December 6, 2013

Late Afternoon December Field and Managed Chaos

A 9x12 oil on panel.

I've been reading a book called Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto, which I found fittingly at the dump. It's a book filled with wisdom acquired through Masumoto living the life of a farmer dependent upon nature, and other things out of one's control. The writer mentions a farmer friend who paints, who uses a variety of greens to depict plants, and who also likes to depict piles of discarded fruit trees assembled by the bulldozer. I might paint a picture of the discarded barn, another pile of wood. Masumoto wrtes: "This past year I have learned that productivity is little more than managed chaos, wildness the source of fertility."